Category Archives: Out This Week

This Week: Flash #14 and Impulse vs. Grim ‘n’ Gritty

This week sees the release of The Flash #14, part two of Gorilla Warfare, by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. Preview at CBR.

Gorilla Grodd’s more powerful than ever, and the Flash is completely outmatched! Who will give their life defending Central City against the ape invasion?

ComiXology’s digital backissues have paused in releasing the early 1990s Flash, but Impulse is still going, with issues #37-38 by William Messner-Loebs and Craig Rousseau.

Impulse #37 parodies the grim-and-gritty 90s excess as Bart encounters the Glory Shredder, a vigilante who takes his anti-crime crusade too far.

In Impulse #38, a rising river threatens to flood Manchester, Alabama. Can two speedsters and a handful of quirky villains make the difference as the townspeople struggle to save their home?

This Week: Impulse vs. History

Impulse #36

ComiXology has paused in its digital Flash reprints (last week their library caught up with a large chunk of previously-released issues), but Impulse is still going.

Impulse #35: Part 2 of The Devonian Age, in which a villain alters history to make himself ruler of the world…but the timeline isn’t exactly stable, as Impulse and Max Mercury find out.

Impulse #36: Bart and his friends testify in court about the events a few issues back when they caught a group of criminals dumping toxic waste outside town. Also: Impulse shaves his head, because, y’know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This Week’s Digital Flash(back)s: Gold and Alchemy

Flash #72: Solid Gold

This week’s ComiXology back-issues include Flash #72-73 and Impulse #33-34.

Flash #72 concludes the two-parter with The Alchemist, a short-lived successor to Dr. Alchemy, and is also the issue in which Wally West and Linda Park start dating. Flash #73 features the return of Jay Garrick to the title after the Justice Society’s years in limbo, and what was at the time a shocking last page that led directly in to “The Return of Barry Allen.”

The Return of Barry Allen itself is already available, launched during the Flash 101 sale last year, as is the following storyline, “Back on Track,” in which Wally teams up with Nightwing and Starfire. That means that as of this week, the first 83 issues of Wally West’s Flash series are all available online. No doubt next week ComiXology will jump ahead to #84.

Impulse #33: Thanksgiving

I don’t remember anything about Impulse #33, and as fun as the cover is, it doesn’t jog my memory of the contents. ~~The title is “Time Out,” so it might be the one where Bart’s school’s new guidance counselor calls Max and Helen in to go over Bart Allen’s guardianship. (It’s funnier than it sounds.)~~ ComiXology describes it as featuring the return of White Lightning, and the kids dealing with the missteps of the school’s new social worker.

Impulse #34 is the first half of “The Devonian Age,” a story in which Bart and Max Mercury get caught up in a time travel experiment gone wrong (don’t they always?) and have to try to repair history from the butterfly effect.

This Week – Flash: Move Forward HC, digital Gorilla Warfare & The Alchemist

Struck by a bolt of lightning and doused in chemicals, Central City Police scientist Barry Allen was transformed into the fastest man alive. Tapping into the energy field called The Speed Force, he applies a tenacious sense of justice to protect an serve the world as The Flash!

The Fastest Man Alive returns to his own monthly series as part of the DC Comics—The New 52 event with the writer/artist team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. The Flash knows he can’t be everywhere at once, but he has seemingly met his match when he faces DC Comic’ hottest new Super Villain, Mob Rule, who really can be everywhere at once!

As Mob Rule wages a campaign of crime across Central City, including an electromagnetic blast that plunges the city into darkness, The Flash learns the the only way he can capture Mob Rule and save Central City is to learn how to make his brain function even faster than before—but as much as it helps him, it also comes with a steep price.

This volume collects issues 1-8 of the monthly series.

— Amazon’s description of the book.

And yes, contrary to previous reports it does collect issues #1-8. I met Brian Buccellato at Long Beach Comic & Horror Con over the weekend, and he showed off a copy of the book.

Digital Backissues

ComiXology adds Flash #70-71 and Impulse #31-32. Flash #70 concludes the 4-part “Gorilla Warfare” crossover with Green Lantern #30-31, while Flash #71 is the first part of a 2-part story with an all new Dr. Alchemy. Impulse #31 has Max Mercury going up against his old nemesis Dr. Morlo, and Impulse #32 focuses on one of Bart’s friends, Preston, as he deals with both being injured as a bystander in a superhero/villain fight and facing his mother’s mental health problems.

This Week’s Digital Flash(backs): more Gorilla Warfare

This week’s digital back issues at ComiXology include Flash v.2 #68-69 and Impulse #29-30.

Flash #68 concludes the two-parter re-introducing Abra Kadabra, and presents a new vision of the 64th century: a highly regulated world where everyone’s lives are planned down to the second, controlled by a massive computer called the Chronarch. (Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque)

Flash #69 & Green Lantern #30-31 feature the first three chapters of “Gorilla Warfare” — not the current storyline of course, but a crossover between Flash and Green Lantern in which Hector Hammond teams up with Grodd. (Mark Waid, Gerard Jones, Greg LaRocque, M.D. Bright, Romeo Tanghal)

Impulse #29 marks William Messner-Loebs’ debut on the series, as Bart and his friends stumble on a group of criminals dumping toxic waste near their town.

Impulse #30 is a tie-in to the Genesis crossover in which all the super-powers…and all the hope as well…are drained from the world…and an old enemy of Max Mercury’s takes the opportunity to settle the score. (William Messner-Loebs, Craig Rousseau)

Today’s half-remembered quote that I’ll fix when I have time to look it up:

“What kind of super-villain puts the location of his evil lair on his web page?”

This Week: Flash #13, Showcase vol.4, Digital Flashbacks

Out this week, it’s The Flash #13 by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato. “Gorilla Warfare” begins as Grodd and his army attack Central City and the Flash is forced to team up with the Rogues to defend it.

Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.4

This week also sees the release of Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.4, continuing DC’s low-cost black-and-white reprints from the Silver Age. This 500+ page volume features Flash #162-184, covering the mid-1960s as Barry Allen fights classic Rogues and teams up with Jay Garrick and Green Lantern. Written by John Broome, Gardner Fox, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, and Frank Robbins with art by Carmine Infantino, Ross Andru and others.

Here’s what I said about the contents when it was announced:

Let’s take a quick look at what’s in here. Barry Allen and Iris West’s wedding…Reverse-Flash…oh, no, it’s the Mopee story!…a three-Flash team-up with Wally West and Jay Garrick…the Stupendous Triumph of the Six Super-Villains with the now-iconic, frequently-homaged cover of the Rogues standing over the Flash’s dead body…the second Superman/Flash race (the first was in the pages of Superman)…the Giant-Head Flash…Cary Bates’ first Flash story, introducing Earth-Prime…the Samuroids…and the Most Tragic Day. They stories 1966-1968, as the Flash inches its way from Silver-Age goofiness toward the more serious (but still odd) Bronze Age.

In the digital realm, ComiXology continues its re-releases of Flash (Wally West) and Impulse. Flash #66 features a team-up with Aquaman. Flash #67 is the first half of a two-parter featuring the return of Abra Kadabra and a new look at the 64th Century from which he came. Mark Waid writes and Greg LaRocque draws both issues.

Impulse #26, Mark Waid’s final issue, sees the teens of Manchester occupying the local shopping mall to protest a curfew. Impulse #27 by Tom Peyer and Sal Buscema features the first appearance of Arrowette, who would go on to become a member of Young Justice.